Voice of the people (letter).

Let's Retire Air Force Chimpanzees

September 02, 1997|By Suzanne Roy, Program director, In Defense of Animals.

MILL VALLEY, Calif. — The National Academy of Sciences recently issued a high-profile report on the issue of using chimpanzees in research. Among other recommendations, the academy advised that for both humane and economic reasons, "surplus" chimpanzees (animals no longer needed for research) should be retired from the laboratory to more natural, sanctuary-type settings.

Our biological kinship with chimpanzees confers an "implied moral responsibility for appropriate long-term care," the committee that prepared the report concluded. Retirement of laboratory chimpanzees is the very least we can do for these animals that are more than 98 percent genetically similar to human beings.

Scientists like Jane Goodall have shown us that chimpanzees create and use tools, teach their children, make moral choices and have their own dialects and distinct cultures in the wild. Indeed, the behavior, intelligence and complexity of these magnificent animals closely parallel our own.

But in laboratories across the U.S., humankind's closest genetic cousins are routinely treated as little more than furry test tubes, infected with deadly diseases and subject to other types of painful experimentation.

As our knowledge of the complex nature of chimpanzees has grown, so, too, has the movement to end their use in painful medical testing. Leading figures as diverse as Dr. Goodall and the late Carl Sagan have called for establishing a code of ethics for the treatment of the great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) that would protect them from exploitation and suffering in the name of science. The move to retire chimpanzees from the laboratory is a step in the right direction.

The place to start immediately is with a group of chimpanzees owned by the U.S. Air Force. Ranging in age from 4 to 40, the chimpanzees reside at New Mexico's Holloman Air Force Base, in a colony started in the late 1950s with animals captured from the jungles of Africa. More than 30 of the original chimpanzees survive today.

Veterans of the U.S. space race and their progeny, the Air Force chimpanzees gained international fame in the 1960s, with the launch of HAM, the first chimpanzee in space, and Enos, the chimpanzee who orbited the Earth in advance of John Glenn's historic mission. Today, the chimpanzees are no longer needed by the Air Force for space research. And now, through a congressionally mandated bid process, the Air Force will consider proposals either to use the animals in laboratory testing or to permanently retire them.

For the Air Force chimpanzees, the decision could mean the difference between life and death. It would be a tragedy if these chimpanzees were forced to endure more long years of incarceration and painful experimentation. The Air Force should heed the advice of the National Academy of Sciences by recognizing its moral responsibility to these animals. It's time to honorably discharge these space veterans and retire them to a sanctuary where they can live the rest of their lives in peace.